Friday, December 28, 2012

Christmas wrap-up (aka I finally downloaded the pictures off of my phone)

We solved the tree budget dilemma by going to a little-known tree farm. It was very rainy.

And we accidentally came home with a 10 foot tree
I thought I was so smart, getting the obligatory family picture the night before.
They were still pretty crazy though

C completely ignored our agreement to "stay to a budget" and "not use the credit cards" It worked out pretty well for me. Also, I take back every bad thing I ever said about Uggs. I will be buried in these boots.
And this one has officially entered the costume phase. Welcome Tinkerbell!
*Swoon*
Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots!
Eli wants me to caption this "Meant for 8 year olds, built by a 6 year old"
The next day we had a long overdue visit with one of our very favorite families. We talked non-stop for hours while the kids ran amok and Eli tried to compete with a Cinderella carriage. It was so fun!

While my family was still in town we took advantage of a sunny day to go exploring.
Playing hometown tourists
Syd loved the historic school house. I see a slate in her future :) 
Other highlights included a delicious, diabetes friendly Christmas Eve dinner that I classily served on Ikea children's plates because I was all "efficient" and started the dishwasher so I'd have less clean-up afterwards. We found sugar-free chocolate that was not awful, hung out a lot in our jammies, and C and I slept in until 9:00 every morning while the grandparents were in town. It was a really good holiday week.

I have one more day before I have to go back to work (and probably just in time, as I've renewed my lightning fast on-line shopping skillz). I tried to convince C that a lot of women start their maternity leave at 7 months. He reminded me that we've grown accustomed to eating every day. Damn logic and common sense...

Monday, December 24, 2012

The birds!

So homemade Christmas was a little "aspirational" this year, but I still managed to make the kids each one gift. This is Eli's. Their facial expressions were totally accidental but I love how some look completely deranged. And the baby pig looks a bit "touched."

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Homemade Christmas

I am so excited about how these came out! This year my recipients were all girls, so these sets are pretty sparkle and princess heavy. Can you tell that I got a little carried away? So Syd will get some, and I may try throwing a few on Etsy. I love these dolls!



Thursday, December 13, 2012

The Name Game

I tend to be a little hippie-dippie about our kids' names. Firstly, I don't commit to a name until the baby is born. We always narrow our choices down to two, with one being "The Name" and the other being a back-up. Both Eli and Syd ended up with the back-up name because, with both, the moment I heard their cry that was the name that came to my mind. With Eli I just took it as a sign, but with Syd I was completely dumbstruck. We REALLY thought she'd be a Teagan, and yet she just wasn't. I was so sure that after we got home I researched how to change her name, assuming I'd made a horrible mistake. And now, she is so awesomely Sydney Sunshine.

So with Baby Waldo, C and I set about throwing out various names as soon as we found out she was a she. We talked about family names, since both Syd and Eli share a name with one of us. We threw out some old favorites that have been in the running since before Eli was born. And then one day while I was making dinner it came to me. "The Name" It fits so perfectly that I have to remind myself not to refer to her by that name. For months now we haven't come up with anything that seems like even a good back-up, which kind of worries me because what if this isn't her name? (And to reiterate. Chiconky pregnant=Chiconky crazy and neurotic)

So today C came out of our bedroom and handed me a napkin with writing on it. On closer inspection, I saw several names. Specifically, girl names. There were at least five full names. Then he'd ranked them. As I looked at it, I realized that he'd given all five Syd's middle name. Curious. I kept looking and saw that Sydney Cheyne was ranked #2. This was his list from when we were pregnant with Syd, and he'd found it in the baby name book that I keep packed with my maternity clothes! Want to know what #1 was? Baby Waldo's name. I don't even remember considering it, and yet, at some point it was a top pick. I wanted to post a picture, but I can't figure out how to "anonymize" it, so you'll just have to take my word for it. I'm thinking that it's a sign. What do you think? And do we dare go to the hospital without a back-up?



Thursday, December 6, 2012

OMG

The kids were in the shower giggling and talking about taking a shower with a frog. Turns out there really WAS a frog in there! We're getting freaking Biblical around here.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Mutes, sociopaths, and c*ckblockers

And thus was the title of my day.

I've been blessed with a particularly onerous caseload lately. One guy is a true, honest-to-goodness sociopath. It's scary how good he is, because he can talk to me like he's just this downtrodden, misunderstood guy trying to get the care that he needs, but the next minute he can be spewing some of the most vicious, hateful, vile things I've ever heard. When he's pissed he has this stare that can only be described as reptilian, like he's silently calculating the absolute best way to do really horrible things to whoever pissed him off. It's both clinically fascinating and scary as shit. Today I caught him with contraband and he was so nice about it. Like spooky nice.

I've got another guy  who refuses to speak. This in and of itself is not that unusual, but this guy literally pulls the "my lips are sealed" act and will only communicate with me through pantomime. This fool CAN talk. I've talked to him before. He talks to other people. But with me, he only makes these sad faces and complicated hand gestures. It's like Charades, The Therapy Version. And the best part is that he's not what I'd consider "significantly mentally ill" so really, he's just kind of being an asshole. He started in on it again today and I lost it (in what was hopefully a totally clinically appropriate way). I just said, "You need to use your words. I know that you can talk and I'm not going to try to guess what your trying to tell me, so you need to speak." So essentially I told him to use his Big-Boy Words.

And the non-inmates were no better! I've been trying to figure out a way to not work weekends anymore, and it's turned into this crazy complicated clusterfuck. So today, my boss tells me that she may have come up with a perfect solution. It would have given me a little bit more responsibility, let me focus more on the aspects of work I really like (and am really good at, if I do say so myself), and would have justified her giving me weekends off (so I wouldn't have to change units). So she presents it to me and a couple of co-workers that may be impacted, and one guy pipes in with "Weekends off? I'd be into that too." And the beauty of state work is that, because he has seniority over me, he gets first dibs regardless. And then later he goes, "Hey, sorry to block you like that." Like "Oops! My bad!" It was the clearest example of cockblocking I've ever freaking experienced.

Tomorrow I've got a guy who will probably eat glass. But not real glass. Teeny tiny, shatter proof glass pebbles. And I'm half-tempted to eat a couple myself just to see if he'll up his game. And then maybe I'll "try to kill myself" with a paperclip. Those office supplies are dangerous, y'all.

Edited to add that I'm 98% sure there is a frog in my house, but we can't find it. They're teeny, tiny frogs but they make this huge duck noise. And of course it stops whenever we get close to finding it. So today's a total winner. 

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Christmas Happys

We pulled out the Christmas tubs tonight and started unpacking all of our decorations. Not much makes me feel more like the matriarch of an actual family than knowing that I have multiple tubs of Christmas decorations. So the kids are ransacking the book box, setting up the "special Christmas toys," and trying to get all of our singing animals to sing at the same time. As they were unpacking, Syd found this little plastic jar that was left over from daycare teacher presents a few years ago. She was putting ornaments, toys, whatever she could find in it. Then she asked if we could put cookies in it. I tried to put her off 1) because I didn't want her walking around with a jug of cookies and 2) because I ALWAYS fill it with pretzel M&Ms and I'm super-flexible like that. But we were out of M&Ms so I acquiesced and let her put leftover gingersnaps (grossest cookie ever, BTW) in. And Eli, in a voice so incredulous said, "But that's for M&Ms!!"

It warms my heart to know that he knows we have a "Special Christmas M&M Jar" and that he was as blown away as I was that we would put anything else in it. Nothing says Christmas like rigid tradition.